Every hour or so I would tip toe into the dimly lit room. The TV was always running quietly, and in the bed laid a ghost of someone long gone. My grandfather asked to die at home, in his bed, with his dog and his wife and the creaky old floors. On the bedside table was a cup of water and sponges on sticks; they look like funny lollipops. But there’s no humor in the ritual of sponging water into the mouth of a man who has lost all of his functions. It was an act of love. Ten year old me didn’t know what to do but sneak into the room like clockwork and give Pawpaw a drink, gently brush his balding head with my hand, and whisper stories and I love you’s to his shell. Sometimes I would get a moan, or a hoarse and unclear whisper. I would hold his toad hand while I talked, and I knew he wasn’t all gone from the occasional breath of a squeeze.
I was spending the night, though my grandma clearly had her hands full; my parents were on an anniversary vacation in Mexico, and my other grandma and uncle who were watching me were attending a wedding. We saw off the pair in tuxes and glitter, and I made up my sheets on the couch for bed. Grandma made hot chocolate and we watched her late night shows, and I drifted off to sleep under the weight of blankets and a golden retriever.
Molly taking leave of her night time cuddling brought me out of a dream, but I was too comfortable to roll over and see why. There was a dim light barely illuminating the living room, and I could hear two hushed voices moving closer. Grandma Liz had been called back from the wedding. I could hear grandma Joan’s voice cracking as she tried to maintain her quiet, and the muffled sobs of a comforting hug. I was frozen; I knew they wouldn’t talk in front of me if they realized I wasn’t asleep. Tonight was the night, and they didn’t want me to be here. Pawpaw had given up the fight, and was going fast. Grandma Liz gently ‘woke’ me, and said we needed to go home. I feigned a sleepy confusion, and stumbled in a blanket cocoon to the car. Once in my own bed I cried myself into a pounding headache and fell asleep dreading morning.
I’ll never forget the moment. I was in the office playing on the computer, lilo and stitch sandwich stacker, a mindless game. I heard the rise and fall of a car engine pulling up to the house. My uncle came in with a red and puffy face, and a distant voice. We all needed to talk in the living room. I knew. Of course, I knew. The tears came freely, and we walked together where my grandmothers were waiting, just as quiet, just as puffy eyed. I don’t remember the conversation. Just the tears. Those horrible, convulsing, body shaking tears that just won’t stop. I remember being held in my shaking by someone no more steady. I remember my uncle having to call my mother to tell her their father was dead. We all cried until there was nothing left. Nothing left to say, nothing left to do.
I wore his old orange and brown flannel with the pearl snaps every night to sleep for at least a year. Every night the snap of those smooth buttons would pain me in that odd comfort of pain that only comes after someone so loved is gone. I still have the shirt now, but I try not to wear it. The collar has ripped almost completely off, still attached only on the ends. Some of the snaps are missing, and the cuff of one of the sleeves is gone. Every so often I’ll think of the big towering man that was my Pawpaw and go put it on. I like to think of him on the couch, the one with the grease spot in the leather from his hair over the years. No matter the weather he always had on a flannel shirt and khaki pants, held up by suspenders, of course. He loved his old white velcro tennis shoes, so much that when the velcro stopped working he just wrapped them in duct tape.  I like to think of him eating his favorite oatmeal cookies, or out in his mess of a shop mixing up concrete or firing steel. I like to think of him walking me down to the beach, still in flannel, and sitting on a rock watching me swim. Or sneaking me out of the house while grandma was showering for church so we could play hooky at the donut shop all morning. Thinking of him in those final hours, shriveled and frail, is hard. So I choose to remember him in the light.